MouseStation 61 – All About MouseFest with Chairman Dave Marx
(Download
show – Main podcast page – Subscribe
– Podcast
radio player)
Run time 0:30:48
Reminder: We returning to a single feed, which includes all four weekly shows: Monday Short Subjects, Wednesday Featured Topics, Thursday MousePlanetWatch news and Friday Listener Feedback.
If you’d rather pop up our podcast radio player into a separate window so
that you can continue browsing MousePlanet in this window, click
here. (NOTE: Our podcast radio requires Adobe Flash Player. You can dowload
the player here.)
Let us hear from you!
Send in your suggestions, comments or tips via our email feedback
form or via voicemail on our toll-free feedback line (1-866-939-2278).
You can also make suggestions by replying to this post.
If you want to contribute a story for our Monday Magical Moment segment (and
possible inclusion in the Cast Place column here on MousePlanet), you can
either use our email Magical Moment story
form or the toll-free feedback line. (We love it when you use the voice
mail system, because then we can play your call on the show!)
Don’t forget that you’ve only got until Sunday to enter our Owner’s
Locker contest!
Featured Topic
This week, Mike and Mark talk to MouseFest Chairman Dave Marx (co-author
of the PassPorter
series of guidebooks with his wife, Jennifer) about everything happening at
MouseFest 2007.
MouseFest 2007 is
coming up in less than three months, and anticipation and excitement is building.
(Note: MousePlanet is an underwriting sponsor of MouseFest.)
For those unfamiliar with the event, MouseFest is a gathering of the Disney
fan community with many of the various webmasters, podcasters, book authors,
and others in attendance. There are over 50 meets (at least 60 this year)
for the land portion, with more on the cruise portion. It takes place in early
December, while it’s not too cold yet but the decorations are up and the crowds
are (relatively) smaller.
The meeting room at the Dolphin won’t be announced for a little while yet,
as rooms may yet be shuffled due to various convention groups, but it will
be announced well in advance.
The origin of MouseFest came after an annual December meet of the RADP (rec.arts.disney.parks)
Usenet news group and some other communities. Dave, Jennifer, and Deb Wills
(of All Ears Net)
got together at the Crew Cup Lounge at the Yacht Club to recap the event,
and realized that – while the event was growing each year – it could
be really big if they got all of the online Disney communities involved. The
first MouseFest was held in 2003, and it’s grown almost exponentially each
year.
Due to the growth of the event and the rapidly-increasing cost of putting
the event on, the organizing committee (of which Mark is a member) decided
to ask people to voluntarily register for the event, with a sliding cost scale
based on the number of people in your party. However, since all MouseFest
activities have been free in the past (with the exception of sharing the cost
of special, paid activities), we didn’t want to have people paying for the
same old things that they always got anyway. Those who support MouseFest by
voluntarily registering will get a number of benefits, which are listed on
the registration page at the MouseFest
web site.
Another way to help support MouseFest and help yourself at the same time
is to take advantage of the great,
low rate of $159 per night at the Swan and Dolphin Resort. Rooms reserved
at the home resort of the Mega Mouse Meet (which gives you a much shorter
distance to carry your swag bags) will help to defray the costs of the meeting
room.
Nearly 400 people have already registered to attend MouseFest, and we very
much appreciate all of those who are helping to support the event.
All of the scheduled meets at listed on the MouseFest schedule pages for
the cruise
and land
portions of the event. Two of the new events taking place this year are opening
the land portion on Thursday, December 6. MouseFest
101, which starts at 1:00 p.m. at the Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station,
will be hosted by MousePlanet. Mark will join Mike Scopa to give new MouseFesters
some pointers on how to best enjoy the event, and to help them prepare for
the long weekend ahead. As that event ends, attendees won’t have to go anywhere,
as the MouseFest Chairman’s Kick-Off, hosted by Dave Marx, will take place
in the same location from 2:00-3:00 p.m. After the reception, Mike Scopa is
in the spotlight again at his fourth annual Dole
Whip Meet.
Dave didn’t want to pick a favorite between the land and sea portions of
the trip, talking about some of the high portions of each.
Mark asked Dave what he would choose if he could pick just one meet (other
than his own) to attend. After much discussion, Dave picked the Wishes meet
at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party on the opening Thursday night. There
was a bit of discussion about various interesting aspects of last year’s meet.
A reminder: If you’re going to MouseFest and you want to be interviewed on
a podcast, go to PodFest. There will be so many podcasters there that someone
is bound to interview you.
We chatted a little bit about our Hustle-tini
meet. If you’re coming down, meet us there!
You never know who you’re going to meet there. In fact, you may meet folks
from other communities that you never knew existed, but hit it off with them
immediately.
Dave ran down all of the “celebrities” currently scheduled to attend.
The list is long and still growing.
So what do you think? Are you planning to attend MouseFest?
Are you not going this year but thinking about attending next year? Looking
for more information about MouseFest? Let us know by sending an email
or calling our toll-free feedback line (1-866-939-2278) and let us know what
you think!
Changing the Feed?
We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the new format of shorter, more
frequent shows. Currently, we have MouseStation three times a week, with short
subjects on Mondays, featured topics on Wednesdays and listener feedback on
Fridays. We also have the MousePlanetWatch news on Thursday. We’re still currently
maintaining the series of three feeds, one for MouseStation only, one for
MousePlanetWatch only and one for both shows.
Based on listener feedback, we will be deciding whether to merge the feeds,
and return to a single feed with all shows, folding MousePlanetWatch into
the main MouseStation feed. That would still leave us with four shows per
week, but there would be only one feed. With the current listener numbers
being fairly even between MouseStation and MousePlanetWatch, it seems as if
there’s a great deal of overlap between the shows.
Please weigh in on the idea of returning to a single feed via email
or by calling our toll-free feedback line at 1-866-939-2278. Don’t forget
that we love voicemails because then we can put your voice on the show!
Wrapping up
Please take a few minutes to complete our listener
survey. It helps us learn more about you and what you like most about
this podcast.
Don’t forget to go to the iTunes podcast directory and give us a good rating!
You can get your MousePlanet (or MouseStation) swag from the MousePlanet
CafePress store and the brand-new MouseStation
CafePress store.
Thanks to our audio engineer and sound editor Steven Ng.
Thank you for listening!
Subscribe to the podcast
